


Taut

by Necroplantser



Category: Original Work
Genre: Deaf Character, F/M, Light BDSM, Modern Era, Modern Fantasy, Rope Bondage, Sign Language, Slice of Life, mute character, retail hell, sfw kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22810540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Necroplantser/pseuds/Necroplantser
Summary: What's even better than getting to spend your girlfriend's day off letting her tie you up? Certainly not working retail.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	Taut

**Author's Note:**

> Once upon a time, Helicon had an idea for a DnD campaign that didn't go anywhere. This is what happened to it. Ran this by a Deaf friend of mine before posting it, but you never know, so if anything's amiss please let me know.

The text message simply said, ‘very clever’. Harmony slipped it back into his pocket, grinning. His attention turned to Joey, who had her back leg in the air and was licking herself on the futon -- he needed to feed her soon, or she would start scratching at the leg of his pants, her mournful eyes begging for kibble. Simone could wait for a response, he figured, and got up to feed the cat.

His phone buzzed again.

‘Are you coming?’

He huffed. ‘Of course, just need to feed Joey. Give me ten minutes.’

After years of the same thing, the walk to Simone’s apartment only took seven. Mostly through alleys, and as Harmony had found, very uneventful. The odd stray cat here and there, and a car that he could see coming just fine. He would veer off the sidewalk occasionally and there were a few near misses, but he was as safe as any tiefling in the suburbs. He buzzed in her number and waited patiently until the doorknob turned from the inside and he looked down to see her, undercut in rollers, deep green skin just slightly damp. Simone wasn’t one for too much modesty, and crossed her arms over her sports bra, before signing, ‘I thought you said ten.’

‘I did,’ he signed back, ‘Gave myself a little wiggle room.’

Simone’s shoulders heaved in a sigh and she waved him inside, leading him up the stairs to her loft. Harmony could make out something of her signage, close to her chest and away from him but he did recognize ‘shower’. Clearly something he was meant to see, at least a little bit of, and he couldn’t help laughing, then sticking out his tongue when she turned around.

Inside the apartment was the usual mess, half-hemmed skirts lying across a sewing machine and the TV on some cartoon program. Soundproofing tiles lined the walls, and on the table was that week’s newspaper, the page to which it was opened having the tagline, ‘Bellgate Banshee still at large after police admit to mistaken identity’. 

Simone pulled the paper away from him and wagged her finger. ‘Not our business,’ she told him.

‘You were reading about it, though.’

‘I’m looking for coupons.’

Her hand fell over his and she leaned over the table, eyes sparkling and teeth bared in a grin. ‘Would you like to?’ she asked, freeing his hand. ‘I took the liberty of setting up in my room.’

Harmony quirked a brow and took Simone by the hand and, still facing her, backed up through the open bedroom door. He looked around and saw a couple meters of rope coiled up on the mattress in several different piles. He shed his coat, hanging it up on the bedpost, and situated himself on the bed between the rope piles. In silence, he watched as Simone unwound the shortest pile, and lost himself momentarily in the half-orc’s movements, the shift of built-up muscle underneath her leggings. The taut stretch of the rope, the way her lips moved -- and he should have been reading them, he only caught “if you need anything.”

Conscious of his projection, he blurted out what he hoped was an intoned, “What?” but judging by the way she looked at him then, it must have fallen flat.

“I said,” and her lips moved slowly now. “You know what to do if you want me to stop, or if you need anything.”

He gave her a thumbs-up, watching as she moved closer and held out her hand for his. When she took it, she wrapped a small length of the rope around it, made a knot, maneuvered him so his arm had twisted behind his back, and secured it with the rest of the length wrapped across his chest. She straddled his lap then, and he held his free hand to her face, feeling a weight lift from him despite the person-sized weight on his legs. 

‘Okay?’

He nodded.

And they would do this every week, always in Simone’s apartment. Harmony used to object to using up the one day off her filing job gave her just for kink, but it actually gave him time to spend with her again now that they were both working. Just like that, he went off to work early that next morning still in a high where his limbs felt like jelly -- opening up at a goth paraphernalia outlet never went so smoothly as it did the day after. 

One good instance of his day snowballed into the next; that teenager with the face mask who worked in the food court was working that day and with a dead mall and no line in sight they signed back and forth about difficult customers until Harmony was sure his lunch break was half over. No doubt the kid would get hell from a manager for screwing around on the job, which Harmony reflected back upon with some guilt, but as he sat hunched over his burrito he figured it was nothing he hadn’t done as an employee and wouldn’t do now as a manager himself.

Fuck that kid’s manager.

By the time he clocked back in, the shift had changed, and the new girl -- Catherine, a human notable alone for being the one human on the team, never mind her brightly dyed hair and gauged earlobes -- was leaning against the register and popping gum. Harmony still didn’t know what to think of her, as his co-manager Sybil had hired her and they hadn’t talked, and... she’d already seen him staring at her now. 

Awkward.

Her mouth moved too fast for him to read, so he gave her a quizzical look until she repeated herself: “Sorry, no one’s here though.” She quickly tucked her gum back between her teeth -- Harmony noticed, gave her half a smile, and her face flushed.

“Just keep an eye out,” he said. Was that about the gum? Who really could have known? All that had done for him was remind him of how uncomfortable speaking aloud was, and suddenly he felt himself longing for Simone again, who hadn’t gone through learning sign for him, exactly, but who… understood, he supposed.

The day dragged, until it was ten minutes until the end of Harmony’s shift, and in his peripherals he saw a middle-aged human man peek in. Not the usual clientele, but Harmony gave Catherine a nudge and she bolted to attention. He’d just get started tidying up and readying himself to leave… he caught a glimpse in the mirror -- his own face, light orange skin and bright yellow eyes, and the face of the man five feet behind him, tan with grey stubble and prominent smile lines. The face which, as it was, happened to be smiling at him. He turned around. “Can I help you?”

“Are you Harmony?”

Wary now, Harmony nodded. His eyes darted down to the way the old man’s hands twitched as he spoke. The man clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder, hard enough for Harmony to feel the calluses through his t-shirt. Gripped with a sudden terror, he didn’t break eye contact, but the man kept up that warm smile. 

Then he left… and Harmony immediately pushed Catherine to the side to clock out. 

She tapped his shoulder, and said, “He just moved his mouth around…”

“He what?”

“He didn’t speak.”

The ice cold shard in Harmony’s heart melted a fraction. Maybe it was just… no, it couldn’t be. Simone was good, but not that good.

“See you tomorrow, Catherine.”


End file.
